Slytherin After Dark

The Ministry of Magic had given me an office with a window. That was the first sign something was wrong.

Not wrong in the catastrophic sense. Nobody was dead, nobody was Kissed, the world wasn't ending. But in the two years since I'd left Hogwarts with NEWTs that made the examiners blink, I'd learned that the Ministry didn't hand out windows to people it intended to keep around. Windows meant visibility. Visibility meant someone upstairs had decided you were worth showing off, which meant you were worth watching. The glass behind my desk faced east across the Thames, and on clear mornings the light came through so hard I had to charm the blinds half-shut just to read a memo.

Today the blinds were fully open. I wanted the light. I wanted the whole damn city laid out in front of me like a chessboard I'd already won.

Pansy shifted under the desk and I lost my place in the report.

"Hold still," I said, not looking down.

She didn't hold still. That was Pansy. She'd never held still for anyone in her life, not for Snape, not for her mother, not for me, and the fact that she was currently on her knees between my chair and the mahogany paneling didn't change the fundamental architecture of who she was. Her mouth was warm and wet and entirely unhurried, and her hands were braced against my thighs like she was settling in for a long afternoon.

I turned a page I hadn't read. The report was from the Department of International Magical Cooperation, something about tariff schedules on imported potion ingredients, and it was the kind of document that existed specifically to punish anyone who tried to care about it. I cared about it. That was the thing. I'd asked for this assignment. I'd fought for it, quietly, the way you fight for things in the Ministry, which is to say I'd made three people owe me favors and cashed exactly one of them.

Pansy hummed against me and I felt it in my spine.

"Theo's going to notice you're gone," I said.

She pulled back just far enough to speak, her breath cooling the wet skin. "Theo's in Geneva until Thursday."

"Since when?"

"Since Tuesday. He sent an owl." She took me back in her mouth before I could ask anything else, which was, I suspected, the point.

I set the report down. The pages fanned across the blotter, tariff schedules and import quotas and the neat little columns of numbers that made up the architecture of a life I'd built from nothing. My father had been a clerk in the Department of Magical Transportation. My mother had died when I was nine. Neither of them had ever set foot in a room like this, and I'd spent the last six years making sure I would.

The office was small but it was mine. Two windows, one on the east wall and one behind me facing the corridor, both spelled to filter out the worst of the London smog. A bookshelf I'd filled with the volumes I actually used, not the decorative ones. A filing cabinet with three locked drawers and one that was charmed to look locked but wasn't. The desk was oak, heavy, older than the Ministry itself, and it had come with the office because nobody had bothered to move it. I liked that. I liked things that had been here before me and would be here after.

Pansy's tongue did something that made my hand curl around the edge of the desk.

"Slow down," I said.

She didn't slow down. She never did. That was the other thing about Pansy: she had spent her entire adolescence being told what to do by people who thought they owned her, and somewhere around fifth year she'd decided that the only person she'd take orders from was herself. Which meant that when she chose to do something, she did it with a kind of ferocity that had nothing to do with obedience. She was here because she wanted to be here. She was on her knees because she'd decided, sometime between Tuesday and this morning, that this was where she wanted her mouth to be.

I let my head fall back against the chair.

The ceiling was the same off-white as every other ceiling in the Ministry, but someone, probably some long-dead undersecretary, had stenciled a border of interlocking M's around the edge. I'd counted them once. Forty-two on the long walls, twenty-eight on the short. I didn't know why I'd counted them. I didn't know why I remembered the number.

Pansy's hand slid up my thigh and cupped me at the base, and I stopped thinking about the ceiling.

"You're going to make me late," I said.

She pulled off again, just long enough. "For what?"

"Meeting. Ten o'clock. Shacklebolt's office."

She looked up at me then, and her eyes were the same dark grey they'd been when we were eleven, sitting at the Slytherin table watching the older students sort themselves into hierarchies we'd inherit. She'd been pretty then. She was beautiful now, in the way that expensive things are beautiful, all sharp lines and deliberate choices. Her hair was shorter than it had been at school, cut close at the sides, and it made her look like someone who'd stopped pretending to be a girl and started being a woman with a plan.

"Shacklebolt," she said. "The Minister."

"The Minister."

"And you're going to sit there and let him tell you what to do."

I smiled. I couldn't help it. "Nobody tells me what to do, Pansy."

"Except me."

"Except you."

She went back to work and I let her, because the truth was that I had fifteen minutes before I needed to leave and I'd already decided how I was going to spend them. The report could wait. The tariff schedules could wait. Everything in the world could wait for fifteen minutes, because I was twenty-two years old and I had a window and a desk and a woman under it who'd chosen me over the man she was supposed to be marrying, and if that wasn't a life worth living I didn't know what was.

The thing about Pansy was that she knew exactly what she was doing. She'd always known. At Hogwarts she'd been the one who remembered who owed whom, who'd been slighted by whom, who was worth talking to and who wasn't. She'd kept a mental ledger of every favor and every insult, and she'd never once let me see it, but I knew it was there. I knew because I kept one too.

She took me deep and held it, and I felt the pressure build behind my eyes, that familiar heat that started in my spine and spread outward like ink in water. I gripped the arm of the chair. The leather creaked. Somewhere down the corridor a lift dinged and someone laughed, and the sound was so ordinary, so utterly mundane, that it made the moment sharper. This was happening in the middle of the Ministry of Magic. In an office with a window. On a Wednesday morning in October.

I came, and she swallowed, and then she sat back on her heels and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Better?" she said.

"Marginally."

She laughed. It was a real laugh, not the polite one she used in public, and it made her look younger. Twenty-two, same as me, but she'd aged differently. The war had done things to all of us, but Pansy had come out of it with a kind of hard clarity that I respected. She didn't pretend the past hadn't happened. She just refused to let it define her.

I tucked myself back into my trousers and stood up. My legs were unsteady for a second and I hated that. I hated anything that made me look weak, even in front of her, even in private. I walked to the window and looked out at the river. The Thames was grey and slow and full of secrets.

"You should go," I said. "Before someone sees you."

"Someone's already seen me." She stood up and smoothed her robes. They were dark green, Slytherin green, and I wondered if she'd chosen them on purpose. "I came in through the main entrance. Signed the visitor's log. Said I was here to discuss a contract."

"What contract?"

"The one we're pretending to discuss." She picked up her bag from the floor and slung it over her shoulder. "I'm meeting with the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes at eleven. Something about a property dispute in Wiltshire. Boring, but it gives me an excuse to be here."

"You don't need an excuse."

"I do if I want to keep my reputation."

"Your reputation as what?"

She smiled, and it was the old smile, the one she'd used on Draco when she wanted something, the one that had made half of Slytherin think she was harmless and the other half know she wasn't. "As someone who doesn't make mistakes."

She walked to the door and paused with her hand on the handle. "Theo's back on Thursday."

"I know."

"He's going to ask questions."

"Let him."

She looked at me for a long moment. There was something in her face I couldn't read, something that might have been warning or might have been permission. Then she opened the door and stepped out into the corridor, and the door clicked shut behind her, and I was alone.

I sat back down and pulled the report toward me. Tariff schedules. Import quotas. The architecture of a life.

The meeting with Shacklebolt was at ten. I had twelve minutes.

I used them to read.

---

The Minister's office was on the top floor, which meant it had windows on three sides and a view that made my east-facing glass look like a porthole on a sinking ship. Shacklebolt had been Minister for four years and he'd aged visibly in all of them. His hair was more grey than black now, and there were lines around his mouth that hadn't been there when I'd first met him, back when he was still an Auror and I was still a student and the world was still ending.

He didn't stand when I came in. He just gestured at the chair across from his desk and went back to reading whatever was in front of him. I sat. I waited. I'd learned to wait.

The office was bigger than mine, obviously, but it had the same institutional feel, the same off-white walls and heavy furniture and the sense that everything in it had been here for a hundred years and would be here for a hundred more. There was a portrait of some former Minister on the wall behind him, a thin man with a pinched face who was pretending to sleep but kept opening one eye to look at me. I ignored him. I'd learned to ignore portraits too.

"You're early," Shacklebolt said, without looking up.

"I'm always early."

"I know. That's why I said it." He set down his quill and looked at me. His eyes were dark and steady and they'd seen things I could only imagine. "How's the tariff assignment?"

"Finished. I sent the report to your office this morning."

"I know. I read it." He leaned back in his chair. "You're good at this."

"I know."

He smiled, just barely. "Modest."

"Honest."

"Same thing, if you're good enough." He picked up a piece of parchment from his desk and held it out to me. "New assignment. Classified. You'll need to sign before I tell you anything."

I took the parchment. It was heavy, the kind of paper the Ministry used for things that mattered, and there was a single line of text at the top: *By signing below, the undersigned acknowledges that the contents of this assignment are subject to the Official Secrets Act and that any disclosure will result in immediate termination of employment and possible criminal prosecution.*

Standard language. I'd signed a dozen of these. I pulled out my quill and signed my name.

Adam Vance.

Shacklebolt took the parchment back and filed it in a drawer. Then he looked at me for a long moment, and I felt the weight of his attention like a hand on my shoulder.

"There's been a theft," he said.

"From where?"

"From here. From the Department of Mysteries."

I kept my face still. The Department of Mysteries was the one part of the Ministry that nobody talked about, the one part that existed in rumor and speculation and the occasional overheard conversation that you were supposed to forget. I'd never been inside. I'd never met anyone who had.

"What was taken?"

"A prototype. Experimental magic. Something the Unspeakables have been working on for years." He paused. "Something that shouldn't exist."

"What does it do?"

"That's classified. Even for you." He stood up and walked to the window. The view behind him was the same as mine, the river and the city and the grey October sky, but from up here it looked different. Smaller. More manageable. "What I can tell you is that it's dangerous. Not in the way a cursed object is dangerous. In the way an idea is dangerous. If it gets into the wrong hands, people will die."

"Whose hands are the wrong hands?"

"That's what I need you to find out." He turned back to face me. "You're not an Auror. You're not a Hit Wizard. You're a clerk with a talent for seeing patterns and a reputation for getting things done. That's exactly what I need. Someone who can move through the Ministry without being noticed. Someone who can ask questions without raising alarms."

"You want me to investigate."

"I want you to find the thief. Quietly. Without involving anyone else. You report to me and only me." He walked back to his desk and sat down. "Do you understand?"

I understood. I understood that I was being handed an opportunity, the kind of opportunity that came once in a career, and I understood that it was also a trap. If I succeeded, I'd be rewarded. If I failed, I'd be blamed. Either way, I'd be changed.

"I understand," I said.

"Good." He pulled a file from his drawer and slid it across the desk. "Everything we know is in there. Names, dates, possible leads. It's not much. The Unspeakables aren't exactly forthcoming."

I picked up the file. It was thin. Thinner than I liked.

"When do I start?"

"Now."

I stood up. I tucked the file under my arm. I walked to the door.

"Vance," Shacklebolt said.

I turned.

"Be careful. Whoever did this is still inside the Ministry. They're someone you know."

I nodded. I opened the door. I walked out into the corridor, and the door clicked shut behind me, and I was alone with a file full of secrets and a question I couldn't answer.

Who?

---

I didn't go back to my office. I went to the lift and rode it down to the atrium, and then I walked out the main entrance and stood on the steps looking at the street. It was raining, a fine mist that clung to my robes and made everything look soft and indistinct. People hurried past with their heads down, Muggles and wizards alike, and none of them knew that something had been stolen from the most secret part of the most powerful institution in the country.

I knew. And now I had to do something about it.

I opened the file on the steps, shielding it from the rain with my body. The first page was a list of names, twelve of them, all Unspeakables, all with access to the prototype. The second page was a timeline, dates and times and movements, the kind of detail that only mattered if you knew what you were looking for. The third page was a single paragraph, handwritten, that said: *Subject is believed to have accessed the prototype on the night of October 3rd. No signs of forced entry. No witnesses. No magical residue. Subject is either extremely skilled or extremely lucky.*

Or both. I'd learned that the most dangerous people were always both.

I closed the file and tucked it back under my arm. The rain was getting heavier. I needed to get inside, find a quiet place, read the rest. I needed to think.

But first I needed to see someone.

---

The Leaky Cauldron was almost empty at this hour, which was why I'd chosen it. The lunch crowd wouldn't arrive for another hour, and the morning drinkers had already gone home, and the only person in the place besides me and the barman was a woman in the corner booth with a cup of tea and a book.

I walked over and sat down across from her.

"You're late," she said, without looking up.

"I'm exactly on time."

"You're five minutes late. I've been counting." She closed the book and looked at me. Her name was Hermione Granger, and she was the smartest person I'd ever met, and she was also the only person in the world I trusted completely.

"You're the one who wanted to meet here," I said. "I would've come to your office."

"Your office has windows. Mine has a filing cabinet and a view of a brick wall." She pushed the tea toward me. "Drink. You look like you need it."

I drank. It was strong and bitter and exactly what I needed.

"What's in the file?" she said.

"Classified."

"Since when has that ever stopped you?"

I looked at her. She looked back. We'd known each other since first year, when we'd been sorted into different houses and decided, against all reason, to be friends anyway. She'd been a Gryffindor and I'd been a Slytherin and everyone had told us it wouldn't last, and it had lasted, and it was still lasting, and that was the thing about Hermione. She didn't care what people told her. She only cared about what was true.

"Someone stole something from the Department of Mysteries," I said.

Her eyes widened. "What?"

"I don't know yet. Shacklebolt gave me the file. Twelve suspects. No evidence. No leads." I paused. "He told me to be careful."

"Because the thief is still inside the Ministry."

"Because the thief is someone I know."

She was quiet for a moment. The barman wiped down the counter and pretended not to listen. The rain tapped against the windows and the fire crackled in the hearth and the world felt very small and very dangerous.

"Do you have any idea who it is?" she said.

"No."

"Do you have any idea what was stolen?"

"No."

"Do you have any idea what you're going to do?"

I smiled. It was the same smile I'd given Shacklebolt, the same smile I'd given Pansy, the same smile I'd been giving people since I was eleven years old and realized that the only way to survive was to make them think you knew more than you did.

"Not yet," I said. "But I'm going to find out."

She nodded. She trusted me. That was the thing about Hermione. She trusted me even when I didn't deserve it, even when I'd done things she didn't approve of, even when I'd been the one who'd hexed her in third year and the one who'd saved her in fifth and the one who'd stood beside her in seventh when everything was burning down. She trusted me because she knew me. She knew the parts of me that were good and the parts that were bad and she'd decided, somewhere along the way, that the good outweighed the bad.

I hoped she was right.

"What do you need?" she said.

"Information. The Unspeakables don't talk to anyone, but you're in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. You hear things."

"I hear rumors."

"Rumors are a start."

She was quiet again. Then she reached into her bag and pulled out a piece of parchment, folded twice, sealed with wax. "I wasn't going to show you this. I wasn't going to show anyone. But if someone's stolen something from the Department of Mysteries, you need to see it."

I took the parchment. "What is it?"

"A list of everyone who's visited the Department of Mysteries in the last six months. Names, dates, reasons. It's not complete. Some of the visits were off the books. But it's more than you have."

I unfolded the parchment and read. Twelve names. The same twelve from the file. But there were others, too, visitors who weren't Unspeakables, people who'd been granted access for one reason or another. I scanned the list. Most of the names I didn't recognize. But one of them made me stop.

Pansy Parkinson.

October 1st. Two days before the theft.

I looked up at Hermione. She was watching me, her face carefully blank.

"You knew," I said.

"I suspected." She paused. "She's been asking questions. About the Department. About the Unspeakables. About things she shouldn't know."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't know if it was relevant. And I didn't know if you'd believe me." She looked at me with those dark eyes, the same eyes that had looked at me across the Great Hall when we were eleven, the same eyes that had looked at me in the Room of Requirement when we were seventeen. "You and Pansy have history."

"Everyone has history."

"Not like yours."

I folded the parchment and tucked it into my robes. The rain was still falling. The fire was still crackling. The world was still small and dangerous and full of secrets.

"I'll look into it," I said.

"Be careful."

"I'm always careful."

"No, you're not." She stood up and pulled on her cloak. "You're reckless and you're clever and you think you can outrun anything, and one day you're going to find out you can't."

She walked to the door and paused with her hand on the handle.

"Be careful, Adam," she said again. "Please."

Then she was gone, and I was alone with a cup of cold tea and a list of names and a question that wouldn't stop echoing in my head.

Who?

---

I went back to the Ministry. I went back to my office. I closed the door and locked it and sat down at my desk and opened the file and read.

The rain had stopped. The sun was setting. The window faced east, which meant I didn't get the sunset, just the slow fade of light from grey to darker grey to black. I lit a candle and kept reading.

The file was thin but it was dense. Names, dates, places, the kind of detail that only made sense if you knew how to put it together. I knew how to put it together. I'd been putting things together since I was a child, since before Hogwarts, since before I knew there was a word for what I did. My mother had called it "noticing." She'd said I noticed things other people didn't, things they didn't want me to see, and she'd said it like it was a gift, but I'd always known it was a curse.

Because noticing meant knowing. And knowing meant you couldn't pretend anymore.

I read until midnight. I read until my eyes burned and my back ached and the candle had burned down to a stub. I read until I'd memorized every name and every date and every detail, and then I sat back and closed my eyes and let it all settle.

Twelve suspects. Twelve Unspeakables. Twelve people who'd had access to the prototype and the knowledge to use it.

And Pansy.

Pansy, who'd visited the Department of Mysteries two days before the theft.

Pansy, who'd been under my desk this morning with her mouth around my cock.

Pansy, who'd told me she was meeting with the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes at eleven.

I opened my eyes. I looked at the window. The city was dark and quiet and full of people sleeping in their beds, dreaming their dreams, living their lives. None of them knew what I knew. None of them knew what was coming.

I stood up. I blew out the candle. I walked to the door.

I had a question. And I was going to get an answer.

Even if it killed me.